Longklaw.com

I can’t remember where I first saw this image, but I thought I would share. Click on the image to see a larger version.

I finally finished playing 24: The Game for the PlayStation 2. I hardly ever finish games that I play on my own anymore, so I feel the need to write about it.

The game takes place between Season 2 and Season 3 and fills in a few of the plot holes that where present at the beginning of Season 3. The graphics aren’t the best, but the story is good and the voice acting is great. It sounds really good in surround sound.

For the most part, the missions are easy and short and I didn’t have a problem with that. The ones that are annoying are extremely annoying. Maybe that’s just me. The missions vary from the standard action missions to descrambling data on a hard drive. You get to complete action missions as different characters from the show such as Jack, Tony, Michelle, and Kim. Yes, Kim does get in trouble and you do have to save her. It’s cool to see characters that aren’t on the show any more either because they died or they became one of 24’s many characters that disappear without any explanation.

The enemy A.I. is terrible. You can run out in front of one of the bad guys and they’ll soon forget that you are even there. One weird thing is that sometimes when the bad guys run out of ammo they’ll yell, “Reload!” That’s basically another way of saying, “I’m reloading, so now is a good time to shoot at me!” The camerawork can be a pain, especially if you’re fighting up close.

There is a lot in the game that will remind you of the show: the multiple camera angles, the music, the sound effects, the ticking clock, etc. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this game. If you’re a fan of the show, it’s a good game to try out. No, it won’t take 24 hours to complete the game.

I am going to be starting a new job with Mississippi State soon. I’ll be glad to be programming again, even if it’s not the scientific kind of work I did in graduate school.

Teaching was fun at times, but I never really pictured myself doing that forever. Most days I dreaded going to work, but I did have decent days every once in a while. I’m glad for the experience, but I’m also glad that it’s over.

Tutoring also had its moments, but it got to the point where I was happy when students canceled even though it cost me money. Recently they changed the setup, so I’m in there a certain number of hours no matter what. Now I just sit in there bored…checking mail…reading news…over and over again. I’m glad that it’ll soon be over.

Now I’ll be a full-time programmer again. I’ll have only one job in one location. My income will be much greater than it was and I won’t have any breaks in income like I did when I was working for EMCC.

Is this what I thought I would be doing now? No, but you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. I feel fine, though.

Yesterday I installed the latest version of Movable Type. So far, so good.

There are a bunch of new features that I have just glossed over for now. The thing that I’m most excited about is the inclusion of tags. Tags are showing up everywhere, so why not here? If you click on one of the tags, you’ll get a weird looking page. I just need to restore my search template from a backup. Better to just hold off on clicking tags for now 🙂 .

Here goes.

HBO does have some good original programming. Over the past few weeks I have taken the time to watch two miniseries that I had never gotten a chance to see: Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon.

Band of Brothers is a 10-part series that details the World War II experiences of an American group of soldiers called Easy Company. The series is based on real events and all of the characters are based on real people. You see brief interviews with actual members of Easy Company before each episode. The battles scenes were pretty intense and some reminded me of playing Call of Duty. I don’t remember being bored or thinking that I was tired of watching at any point.

From the Earth to the Moon is a 12-part series that chronicles the space race of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Their goal was to show the events in a way that they had never been shown before, so they don’t focus only on the astronauts. Instead of detailing the Apollo 13 disaster from the astronauts’ perspectives, they showed it from the perspectives of journalists that covered the story. One episode focuses on the wives of the astronauts and another focuses on the people that designed the lunar module. I learning a lot of things about the space program that I never knew before. There were a couple of episodes that seemed to drag on a little bit, but I was probably just a little distracted at the time.

Tom Hanks was a producer on both series and you’ll see plenty of recognizable faces. I definitely recommend them both if you have the time.

Another trek down memory lane.

I remember that Fall 2004 was an unusually great season for video games. Not long after I started this site, I created a list to help myself keep track of all the games that I wanted to buy. I had planned on making it available online, but I never got around to it and the list has sat out there all this time with no links pointing to it. Eventually, I stopped using that list and now I keep track of the games that I want on IGN.

Some games on the list that still haven’t been released. Some I never owned but maybe will someday. Some I owned but never played much. Some I spent way too many hours playing.

I hope everyone has a great Independence Day. Today will probably be a movie/gaming day for me. For some reason I don’t really want to do a lot of stuff outside today.

I played the demo for Prey. It reminded me a lot of Doom 3, but this one could potentially be more fun. I’ll definitely be interested in buying it when it comes out on July 10. I’ll just need to upgrade my old computer or buy an Xbox 360 first. So, I probably won’t be playing Prey when it first comes out.

Time to get some BBQ.

My return to online gaming never really got that far off the ground. I was finding it hard to motivate myself to put the time into it. World of Warcraft was great, but I never got into Dungeons & Dragons Online as much as I wanted to. I decided that I didn’t want to pay monthly fees for games that I wasn’t even playing, so my subscriptions have now been canceled.

My offline console games are much more appealing to me right now. The second helping of Tales of Symphonia is almost complete. I starting playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and now I know why so many people are crazy about this game. Also, I rented a copy of the 24 game. It’s not a great game, but fans of the TV show should like it.

I did spent a little bit of time playing an old PC favorite of mine: Diablo II. This is a game I can really see myself putting some time into. Stay tuned.

A while back I wrote that one of my favorite authors was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Another of my favorite authors, Terry Goodkind, was recently found to have “a potentially fatal defect in the major artery that supplies blood to my heart”. He says on his website that he had surgery and that everything was repaired. His doctor told him that he had the heart of 20-year old. The penultimate book in his Sword of Truth series is called Phantom and it will be released on July 18.

I told myself a long time ago that I shouldn’t start reading any series that the authors haven’t already completed and so far I’ve stuck to that. Something could happen and it would be a shame not to be able to see the end of a series I put so many hours into. I hope everything will be ok with these two authors and they will get to write all the books that they want to write. I can’t wait to read Phantom in a few weeks.

I used to sometimes participate in beta tests for video games . I was going through some files that on my computer and came across an old list that I had kept of games that I got a chance to beta test. I’m don’t know why I kept the list, but looking at it brings back memories of games I had long forgotten and some I don’t think I’ll forget for a long time. Diablo II was the first. Here goes:

Act of War
Anarchy Online
City of Heroes
Command and Conquer: Renegade
Conquest: Frontier Wars
Diablo II
EVE: The Second Genesis
Everquest Online Adventures (PS2)
Everquest Online Adventures: Frontiers (PS2)
Fung Wan Online
Ground Control
Ground Control II
Guild Wars
Horizons: Empire of Istaria
Killzone (PS2)
Knight Shift
Kohan II: Kings of War
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
Lords of Everquest
Massive Assault Network
The Matrix Online
Mimesis Online
PlanetSide
PlanetSide: Core Combat
Project Entropia
The Saga of Ryzom
The Sims Online
S.L.A.I. Phantom Crash (PS2)
SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs (PS2)
Star Trek: Armada
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (PS2)
There
Ultimate Baseball Online
Unreal II: Expanded Multiplayer
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
World of Warcraft